This post started off as an email to a few family and friends, but I figured I might as well share with the world.
I’ll start with a clarification: If your only goal in using social media is money, you will probably fail miserably. A passion for writing and engaging with others is a requirement for success. I don’t care what your marketing gurus, experts, and alleged social media strategists have told you. They are wrong. You have to like this stuff to succeed in it.
Now, there are a bazillion ways to make money for tweeting and blogging. They all require that you have some type of following and that you are active. This may leave you with a chicken-and-egg problem if you’re just getting started, but this will be easily overcome if you refer to the first paragraph of this post.
Without further ado, here are a few of the ways I’ve made money from tweeting and blogging. I’ll spare you all the descriptions and details. Just go sign up and hit me back if you have questions:
Blogging
I’m probably forgetting some, but how many do you really need? What you will find is that these services require you to create original content (besides whatever they’ll pay you to write) and build a community. If you don’t have any followers or traffic to your blog, why would they want to pay you?
Don’t just randomly flip all this crap on and spam your followers to death or you will end up alone. Try to be selective and stay focused on your brand/topic. It’s a fine line to walk and stepping off the path will leave you broke.
Of course, there are more advanced ways to earn money from your online activities, but we’ll save those for another day. With gas running at about a million dollars per gallon, it wouldn’t hurt to earn a little extra on the side.